Friday, 7 July 2017

If you've been keeping an eye on my twitter lately than you may have noticed that I recently moved house. I knew that this was going to be tough. As someone with OCD and anxiety, change is not easy for me to deal with. But I didn't quite realise just how difficult everything was going to be. I've been putting on a brave face in front of people, because even though I know my mental health does not make me weak, it still makes me feel weak. But in all honesty, this past month I have struggled more than I have in a very long time. It was enough to make me wonder if my meds weren't strong enough.

I want to say that one of the saving graces was that I was moving back to my mum's house but I think actually this made everything - mental health wise at least - that little bit worse. Because as much as I love my mum and my sister and my step dad, living with them is a very different thing. More than that, I know that they know I have issues but they're very much "get over it" people as opposed to "it's okay" people. Which is obviously difficult but totally fine because I know they love me. But living in that environment is quite different to living more or less alone.

So my brain has had to get used to this and I'm feeling a bit better. Being in the house has definitely made me realise that if things get too much, I can just escape to my bedroom. While we do like to spend time as a family, we are all also very considerate to know that alone time is okay too. And this has helped me to calm my OCD and anxieties about moving home.

But with moving home also came getting rid of stuff. I really wanted to move from my shared flat to my own flat. Then I could have taken all of my belongings with me and it would have been fine. Instead I had to downsize. I moved from a fairly decent sized single (it could have fit a double bed in it) room into what is essentially a box room. It is literally a square room. The length of a single bed, the width of a single bed. This meant that I couldn't have all the furniture I once had. (Bed, bedside cabinet, desk, two bookcases, chest of drawers, double wardrobe) I now have a bed, bedside cabinet, one bookcase, chest of drawers and have since purchased some more plastic storage drawers - NO wardrobe). With less furniture comes less space to store my belongings.

And thus, for the last month and a bit I have had to go through everything I own and decide if I want to keep it or throw it away. And I know for someone without mental health issues this can be tough, so for me it was horrid. It took me longer than it should have because I kept having to stop to collect my thoughts and ground myself. Remind myself that it is okay to get rid of things. That they would be going to better places, potentially helping someone else who needs them.

In the end it took four trips to the recycling centre to get rid of all of the stuff I had to dispose of. Plus it has taken a lot of trips to the post office to send out book post to friends and bloggers and quite a few trips to charity shops to get rid of the rest. Heartbreaking isn't really a big enough word to describe my feelings on it all. I keep panicking that I've made a huge mistake. What if I got rid of the wrong books? What if I got rid of something I really need?

But aside from just the packing and chucking, there was also a massive issue with the actual move. As you may have noticed I took some of my furniture with me to my mums but I wasn't able to sort this on my own. In fact, I didn't really move any of my stuff on my own because ever since getting ill but strength has been sapped away from me. (more on that later, I'm sure), and so I had to enlist people to help. Which is normal and should have been fine, right?

Except it wasn't. Because watching someone else carry my things, no matter how careful they were with them, was soul crushing. My control was gone and I wanted to just sit and cry. I felt uncomfortable and lost. It was so, so difficult. It had to be done but I think a part of me felt like it was dying inside.

Now I have a room that is mostly finished. Most of the boxes have been unpacked and my things have been given new places to live and it feels like mine and me and I like waking up in the morning - and the cats being around is also definitely nice - but there's still a part of me that is devastated that it's not the place I woke up in for the last three years nor that it is my own new place.

As far as I'm concerned, I've gone backwards.

But what is ultimately worse is that the move has been so stressful and soul wrenching that I don't know when I'm going to be ready to do it again. I know I have to because I do not want to live with my mum forever but as much as I don't want to still be there a year from today, I also don't want to have to go through all of this again in a few months time.

For now, I guess I just need to wait and see how it goes. To try and just let myself get settled in the place I'm in and go from there.

I still don't feel okay within myself but maybe one day soon I will be.